The Great White Queen: A Tale of Treasure and Treason

"A fate he certainly deserved," I said. "But has her body been recovered?"

"A body has been found and I have seen it. But the limbs are crushed, and her face is, alas! trampled out of all recognition, although the dress answers exactly to one that Goliba says his daughter possessed, and in which I myself saw her. There is, alas! no doubt of her fate. She has been brutally murdered, and at the instigation of the Naya, who sent forth her fiendish horde to kill us."

"I knew from the manner you exchanged glances with Liola that you loved her," I said, after a pause, brief and painful.

"Yes," he answered sadly. "Surreptitiously I had breathed into her ear words of affection, and had been transported to a veritable paradise of delight by the discovery that she reciprocated my love. But," he added, harshly, "my brief happy love-dream is now ended. I must live and work only for my people; they must be to me both sweetheart and wife. I must act as my ancestors have done, indulging them and loving them."

Never before, even in the moments when as fellow-adventurers things looked blackest, had I seen him in so utterly dejected an attitude. The light had died from his face, and he had suddenly become burdened by a monarch's responsibilities; prematurely aged by a bitter sorrow that had sapped all youthful gaiety from his buoyant heart.

With heartfelt sympathy I endeavoured to console him, but all was unavailing. That he had loved her madly was only too apparent, and it seemed equally certain that she was dead, for shortly afterwards Goliba entered, and in a voice full of emotion told us how he had been able to identify the body, and that his tardy attendance upon his royal master was due to the fact that he had been superintending her burial.

The old sage's words visibly increased Omar's burden of sorrow, for in the moonlight I saw a tear trickle down his pale cheek, glistening for an instant brighter than the jewels upon his robe. Liola had fallen victim to the inhuman brutality of the Naya's guards, and Mo had thus been deprived of a bewitchingly handsome queen.

The dénouement of this stirring story of a throne was indeed a tragic one; Goliba had lost his only daughter, the pride of his heart, and Omar the woman he loved.

The silence that followed was broken by a hasty footstep, and the tall dark figure of Kona approached.

"A strange fact hath transpired, O Master!" he cried breathlessly, addressing Omar.

"Speak, tell me," the young Naba exclaimed, starting up. "Is it of Liola that thou bearest news?"

"Alas! no. That she was murdered in the first moments of the conflict is only too certain," he answered. "The news I bring thee is amazing. While we were engaged in the struggle for thy throne, thine enemies, the people of Samory, entered the city and fought side by side with the military!"

"Samory's people here!" we all three cried, starting up.

"They were, but they have departed no one knows whither. Their numbers were not great, but they sacked and burned several large buildings near the city-gate and fought desperately to join their allies the troops of Mo, but were at last prevented and driven back by the people in a fierce bloody conflict that actually occurred after thou wert enthroned."

Then I remembered having noticed the smoke of the encounter, and how with others, I had been puzzled.

"But how could they enter our country, and unseen approach the city?" Omar exclaimed astounded.

"I know not the intricacies of the approaches to Mo save the perilous Way of the Thousand Steps," Kona replied. "The force may have been the rear-guard of the army that attacked Mo, and were defeated in the great chasm known as the Grave of Enemies. If they approached by that means they must have followed closely in our footsteps, and through the treachery of spies, been admitted to the city at a time when the alertness of the guards was diverted by the popular rising."

"Were their losses great in the fight?" Goliba asked.

"Terrible. Whole streets and market-places in the vicinity of the entrance to the city were found strewn with their dead," the black giant answered. "Apparently the people discovered the identity of their enemies and took no prisoners. With the exception of about two hundred survivors all were killed."

"And the survivors have escaped!" Omar observed thoughtfully.

"Yes. Owing to the lax watch kept at the gate during those momentous hours, they were enabled to descend the steps to the plain and get clear away."

"They must nevertheless be still in Mo. They must be found," Omar cried excitedly. "While they are among us our country will be in jeopardy, for they will act as spies. Samory hath set his mind upon conquering this our land; his plot must be frustrated."

"Already have I given orders for a search from the land's most northerly limits even to the Grave of Enemies, O Master," Kona answered. "All the men who could be spared from guarding the city I have dispatched on expeditions with orders to attack and destroy the fugitives."

"They cannot have travelled far," the young ruler said. "They have only about twelve hours' start of your men."

"To a man our troops are now loyal to thee," the newly-created chief of the army answered. "They are alive to the fact that Samory's fighting-men are their bitterest foes, therefore if the survivors of that intrepid force are within our boundaries, they will assuredly be overtaken and killed."

"I would rather that they were captured and held as hostages," Omar said. "Enough blood hath been already shed to-day."

"The order to capture them is not sufficient incentive to thine army to rout them from their hiding-place," Kona replied. "They have had the audacity to make a dash upon thy city and burn some of its most renowned and beautiful structures, therefore in their opinion if not in thine, death alone would expiate their offence."

"I would wish their lives to be spared," Omar repeated. "But the army is under thy control, and I leave the final annihilation of the band of freebooters unto thee. Hast thou obtained any tidings of the Naya's flight?"

"None. My Dagombas have searched every nook and corner of this thy palace, each prison dungeon hath been entered by detachments of soldiers, while enthusiastic parties have descended to the subterranean Temple of Zomara, but found only the dwarf priests there. The Naya hath disappeared as completely as if Zomara had crushed her between his jaws."

"Her disappearance is amazing," Omar observed. "Even her personal attendants whom I have questioned are ignorant of the direction she hath taken. They declare that she escaped within ten minutes of the blowing up of the palace-gate. The catastrophe alarmed her, and she saw in the fall of these defences the instability of her throne."

"All is being done that can be done to secure her arrest," Kona said. "It is absolutely necessary that we should hold her captive, or, like the deposed queen of the Nupé, she may stir up strife and form a plot to reascend the stool."

"To thee, Kona, I look to guard me from mine enemies," my friend exclaimed. "We must elucidate the mystery of the sudden descent of this weak force of Samory's, the rapidity with which they struck their blow, and the means by which they have, within twelve hours, so completely eluded us."

"News of them hath been flashed even unto the furthermost limits of thy kingdom, O Great Chief," Kona assured him. "No effort shall be spared by thy servant in executing thy commands. I go forth again, and sleep shall not close my eyes until the men of Samory have been overtaken."

With these words he made deep obeisance to the newly-enthroned sovereign, and lifting his long native spear, which he still retained, he swore vengeance most terrible upon the enemies of Mo, who had, with such consummate strategic skill, entered and attacked the city at the moment when it remained undefended.

"There is some deep mystery underlying this, Scars," Omar said, when Kona had stalked away into the darkness, and Goliba had risen and crossed the moon-lit court in response to a message delivered by a black slave. "I am scarcely surprised at Kona's failure to capture the Naya; indeed, personally, I should only be too happy to know that she had got safely beyond the limits of Mo. But the sudden attack and rapid disappearance of this marauding band of Samory proves two things; first that our country, long thought impregnable, may be invaded, and secondly that through Kouaga Samory is in possession of certain of our secrets."

"What secrets?" I asked.

"Secrets upon the preservation of which the welfare and safety of my country depend," he answered mysteriously. Then, with a sudden air of dejection, he added: "But there, what matters after all, now that Liola is dead and my life is desolate? At the very moment when the greatest honour has been bestowed upon me and I am enthroned Naba, the saviour of my people, the greatest sorrow has also fallen upon me."

After a moment's silence he started up in sudden desperation, crying: "Slave have I been to evil all the days of my life! I have toiled and earned nothing; I have sown in care and reaped not in merriment; I have poisoned the comfort of others, but no blessing hath fallen into my own lap. Blasted are the paths whereon I trod; my past actions are ravenous vultures gnawing on my vitals, and the sharpened claws of malicious spirits await my arrival among the regions of the accursed."

"Yes," I observed with a sigh, for the remembrance of that bright, beautiful face was to me likewise one of ineffable sadness. "Yes," I said, "Fate has indeed been unkind. What she has bestowed with one hand, she has taken away with the other."

Then we were silent. Above the cool plashing music of the fountain could be heard the distant roar of voices in great rejoicing, while upon the starlit sky was still reflected a red ominous glare from the fires raging in the city that no effort of man could subdue. At the gate leading outward to the next court stood two sentries with drawn swords gleaming in the moonbeams, mute and motionless like statues, while echoing along the colonnade was the measured tramp of the soldier as he paced before the entrance of the gilded Hall of Audience, the scene of so many stirring dramas in the nation's history. From the divan whereon I sat I could see the great Emerald Throne glittering green under a brilliant light, with its golden image of the sacred crocodile and its banner bearing the hideous vampire-bat, while around it were still grouped the officials of the household, the body-guard of faithful Dagombas, the slaves ready with their great fans, and Gankoma, the executioner, with his bright double-edged doka, all standing in patience, awaiting the coming of their royal master.

The Court of Mo was, I reflected, a strange admixture of European civilization and culture with African superstition and barbarity. On the one hand the buildings were of marble or stone, magnificent in their proportions, with decorations in the highest style of Moorish art, the arms were of the latest pattern surreptitiously imported from England and many of them faithfully copied by skilful, enlightened workmen; electricity was known and used, and the tastes of the people showed a refinement almost equal to that of any European state. Yet in religion there prevailed the crudest and most ignorant forms of superstition, one of which was the horrible practice of burying alive all sick persons, while the custom of the executioner accompanying the reigning monarch everywhere, ready to obey the royal command, was distinctly a relic of savage barbarism.

"A few moments ago you spoke of secrets that must be preserved," I said presently, turning to Omar.

"Yes," he answered slowly. "But my heart is too full of poignant grief to think of them. To-night the secrets are mine alone; to-morrow you shall be in possession of at least one of them. I have, however, much yet to do, I see, before I rest," he added, glancing over his shoulder into the brilliant hall where stood the empty throne.

Then rising wearily, he sighed for Goliba's dead daughter, and weighted by his rich robes, slowly strode across to the arched entrance from which the light streamed forth, and as he set foot upon its threshold every proud head bowed to earth in deep, abject obeisance.

CHAPTER XXX

TREASURE AND TREASON

At Omar's request a few days later I accompanied him alone through a private exit of the palace, and ere long we found ourselves unnoticed beyond the ponderous city walls, where two horses, held by a slave, were awaiting us. Mounting, we rode straight for the open country, and not knowing whither we were going or what were my companion's intentions, we soon left the great city far behind. For fully three hours we pressed forward, my companion avoiding any answer to my questions as to our goal, until about noon we came to a rising mount in the midst of a beautiful country with palms and scattered orange-groves.

The scene was a veritable paradise. Beautiful fruits peeped from between the foliage, and every coloured, every scented flower, in agreeable variety intermingled with the grass. Roses and woodbines, very much like those in England, appeared in beauteous contention; while beneath great trees were rich flocks of birds of various feather. At the foot of the hill ran a clear, transparent stream, which gently washed the margin of the green whereon we stood. On the other side a grove of myrtles, intermixed with roses and flowering shrubs, led into shady mazes; in the midst of which appeared the glittering tops of elegant pavilions, some of which stood on the brink of the river, others had wide avenues leading through the groves, and others were almost hidden from sight by intervening woods. All were calculated to give the ideas of pleasure rather than magnificence, and had more ease than labour conspicuous.

"Beautiful!" I cried, gazing entranced upon the scene.

"Yes. From the moment we left the city and passed through the ancient gateway that you admired, we have been riding in my private domain. Here, as far as the eye can reach, all is mine, the garden of the Sanoms. But let us hasten forward. It was not to show you picturesque landscapes that I brought you hither. We have much to do ere we return."